I took a non-climber friend climbing on an 9 route at World's View (for those who don't know, its a minor trad crag in Hilton - about 6m high) today. I lead the route, shortly after the "crux" there is a bit with basically gear - I managed to get my BD wired hex size 10 (my favourite piece) into a fairly descent crack.

On the route getting seconded it turned out that this was an absolute bomber of a placement, so much so that after half an hour of trying to get it out, my biggest piece has been deemed to be a piece of fixed pro on the route.

Any particular technique one can employ to remove such a placement? I have tried hitting it with rocks from various angles it won't budge. No falls were taken on it, so I don't know how it ended up so stuck - it definitely wasn't this tight when I put it in.

"There is something fundamentally wrong in treating the Earth as if it were a business in liquidation." Herman E Daly

I had a nut get stuck while back in similar fashion - slipped in easily, could move it around but not get out again no matter how we positioned it or the amount of force we used. Turned out it expanded just enough with the increasing heat of the day to be just big enough to not come out any more. We cooled it with compressed C02 (bike tyre refill) & it came out again as easily as it went in.

Some brilliant suggestions here.
Funny how hexes can get horribly stuck.
I have always used the hammer and brute force method (resulting in very bruised and battered hexes - sorry Hannelie), but will try to be more subtle in future!
C ya there,
Bruce

A bit like the non climber who placed her car in a tight space (below!)

I can see how the CO2 might work depending on the size. Just remember if it got in there, it can get out

A woman survived a 150-metre fall down a cliff in her car in Clifton, Cape Town, paramedics said on Sunday.

The woman, believed to be in her early 30s, lost control of the car at around 7.30am on Saturday, said ER24 spokesperson Derrick Banks.
The car plunged down the cliff and landed in a backyard, wedged between a wall and a house.
"When emergency personnel arrived on the scene, they found the driver had already climbed out [of] the car," said Banks.

"They assessed and treated [her] for suspected neck and back injuries and possible broken ribs."
She was later taken to hospital.

So I took some ice water, a hammer, a harness folded out of a sling (I didn't want to dirty my harness) and ab-ed in. No surprise, one big red hex was right where I left it (got to love unnamed easy routes on obscure crags) - that and the fact that it wasn't moving anyway...

I started by spraying it with 500ml of ice water. It didn't even move a millimeter with that. So out comes the hammer. I bash it from underneath, on top (when it was camming tighter), and from the back. It moved, but was just getting wedged higher up. Eventually, after about 10 minutes, I found the narrow slot I must have pushed it through, and with some more encouragement from the hammer, it finally came out.

Now I was expecting my hex to be a bit out of shape, but aside from some missing paint and lots of mud on it, it barely even has a scratch!

Thanks everyone for the advice, I really missed that hex...

"There is something fundamentally wrong in treating the Earth as if it were a business in liquidation." Herman E Daly